


What's The Use of Feeling?

by Eavenne



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 04:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15549777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eavenne/pseuds/Eavenne
Summary: Yellow Diamond finds out about Pink's "shattering".





	What's The Use of Feeling?

Yellow Diamond was on Homeworld when she received the news.

Perhaps she was in the middle of colonising another planet, or finalising the plans for a new Kindergarten on her latest colony – either way, it was of less importance than what she’d just learned. 

She didn’t believe it, at first. “You’ve got to be joking,” she declared, trying to ignore the way her Pearl’s gaze darted nervously from one corner of the room to the other. “A Rose Quartz could never shatter a Diamond. Not even Pink would be so careless.”

For a few tense moments, a forbidding silence filled the room. 

Then Pearl shook her head vigorously and leapt forward. “Forgive me, my Diamond!” she cried, and all at once a projection filled the room and Yellow watched as a Rose Quartz stepped before Pink and stabbed her and shattered –

No, no, no. It couldn’t – it couldn’t be true. “I don’t believe it,” said Yellow, struggling to keep her voice even. “You’re going to need better evidence than that to convince me of such a thing.” Her armour felt unnaturally constricting – it clutched at her torso, restricting her breathing. “Who did you hear this from, anyway? Bring them to me.” She’d shatter the lying gem herself.

Everything happened at once – Pearl looked up at her with wide eyes and trembling hands and opened her mouth to reply but closed it again, and suddenly the warp pad at the far end of the room burst with light as Topazes and Agates and Rubies limped in, holding the gemstones of their comrades, crying out that their Diamond, Pink Diamond, had been shattered –

No – they HAD to be lying; this couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t –

A pink shard sparkled in a Ruby’s hand. 

And the world crumbled beneath Yellow Diamond’s feet. 

Everything slammed into her in an instant and she didn’t know what to do because this was terrifying and new and it was all her fault, she knew it, she knew it because if she hadn’t let Pink own a colony –

If she hadn’t given in…

Lightning arced from her hands. The yellow glass panels lining the room crashed to pieces with a thunderous crack and Pearl cried out in alarm but no one listened, and no one cared. Yellow whipped around, strode past the gemstones lying poofed on the floor, and slammed a foot on the warp pad. It flew apart in one hit. 

Had that Rose Quartz shattered Pink so easily?

Something rang in her ears, filled her head with noise, twisted in her chest and stabbed at her gem – she had to be cracked, that had to be it, for it hurt so much, it hurt more than anything she’d ever felt before, and – how was she still here? How was her form still stable? It didn’t make sense – nothing made sense anymore, for everything had gone wrong and Pink had always been within Yellow’s reach but now –

She’d do anything, anything at all, to distract herself from this pain in her chest. Yellow stumbled to an undestroyed corner of the room and flung her fist at the glass again and again, tore through layer after layer as its shards raked at her knuckles. She could understand this, she could comprehend physical pain – it made sense, it was logical, it had a purpose, it –

Pink had been shattered.

The words sank into her mind.

Pink had been shattered. Yellow would never see her again.

Her arm fell limply to her side, and her knees gave way. She collapsed on the floor in a trembling heap. The pink shard shone cold between her fingers. Her eyes stung. She squeezed them shut, but the heat wouldn’t go away.

On that day, Yellow Diamond cried for the first time in her life.

\---

She raced from one task to the other.

There, a new plan to defeat the rebels on Earth; there, a new star map with hundreds of possible colonies; there, ten new Nephrites for her to command. It didn’t matter what Yellow was doing, as long as she was doing something – as long as she didn’t have time to think. As long as she didn’t have time to feel.

She never wanted to feel like that again.

It was pathetic; it was useless. There wasn’t a point to it at all, and since there wasn’t a point, it wasn’t needed. Yellow was objective and decisive and a strong leader and she didn’t need to feel anything to be a Diamond – to fulfil her purpose. 

And if she couldn’t be a good Diamond, her existence was utterly meaningless.

The pain never seemed to go away. Sometimes it’d be a dull ache in her chest, throbbing miserably as she struggled to concentrate; sometimes the ache would swell and expand and explode in her body and it would hurt so deeply and so badly that she would blindly lash out at whatever was in front of her. Sometimes Yellow would slam her fist against whatever hard surface was nearby, and focus on the soreness that flooded through her fingers. It sharpened her mind. It brought her back to reality. 

The Rose Quartzes learned to avoid her – once they did, Yellow looked for them herself, for the entire cut of gem deserved to be shattered for what happened to Pink. 

If it hadn’t been for Blue, that would have been their fate.

Once, Yellow and Blue had shared the same opinions on everything – now, Blue was a stranger, completely unrecognisable, an unfamiliar face. She swept through Homeworld like a shadow, haunting the hallways with clasped hands and a bowed head, mourning Pink and weeping for Pink and desperately clinging on to everything that reminded her of Pink. She stopped smiling. She stopped leading. She stopped functioning.

It was as if Blue had shattered along with Pink, and Yellow had lost both of them in one stroke. She didn’t understand Blue anymore. 

Perhaps she never had.

\---

_What’s the use of feeling, Blue?_


End file.
